Final Resort
by RavenIvywood
Summary: Project Freelancer did not start out as it ended. It had a few, excellently trained or talented soldiers, and an honest goal of stopping the insurrection. This is the story of those agents.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One- Nevada**

A figure walked slowly through the corridor, her steel-soled boots making metallic clicks every time she stepped. She wore dark blue, torn jeans and had a pistol strapped to her right leg's thigh. She also wore a T-shirt, torn so it would leave the area below her chest bare, with short sleeves, that was in crimson, with a white skull on the chest. She had one real, one prosthetic arm, with an omega symbol tattooed onto the forearm of her real arm. She also wore a necklace with her dog tags and a golden cross on it. The cross was solely for decoration. She had jet black hair that was cut short and left to be messy. She also had soft grey eyes, and a pair of tinted glasses resting on her forehead, with the ability to see both in the dark and use heat sensing vision with them. She had 2 earrings in each ear, and a piercing through her nose, lip, and tongue.

She entered a room, the training hall, where she noticed someone attacking a punching bag. Jogging over to him, she waved to Oregon, one of her oldest and closest friends in Project Freelancer.  
"Hey." Oregon waved, leaning against the bag. He was also not in his armor, and wore a black shirt, as well as a pair of jeans. He had ginger hair, and green eyes, as well as a scar running down a large portion of his face.  
"Why're you here?" She inquired.

"Honestly? Dunno. Just bored." Oregon told her. "You?"  
"Looking for Iowa. She stole my sword." Oregon chuckled, and the woman smacked him round the back of the head.  
"Sorry." Oregon said quickly.

"It's alright. Just don't take everything I say to have a double meaning. It'll get you hurt." The woman said.  
"And Iowa doesn't get punished for it?" The woman shrugged.

"Sometimes?"  
"Rae, go and find Iowa. She's probably in the rec room." Oregon ordered his friend.

"Why?" Rae smirked, knowing she was annoying him.

"Because I want to get back to my training and you're distracting me.

"Fine." Rae nodded, and jogged back out to find Iowa.

The rec room did have Iowa, who was asleep on a couch, with Rae's sword, a 3 foot long weapon with the ability to channel electricity impaled in the floor. Rae sighed, and kicked Iowa to wake her up. Iowa had dark brown hair and blue eyes, was largely scarred by an accident with a flamethrower 2 years prior, and wore a simple T-shirt with a fire print, as well as comfortable trousers.

"What?" Iowa asked, looking over to Rae. Said woman pointed at her sword. "Oh. Sorry about that. CO made a bet saying I couldn't take it, so I endeavored to prove her wrong." Rae ran a hand through her hair.

"Why did she make the bet?"  
"I dunno. She went away about 5 minutes ago." Iowa shrugged, sitting up.

"Not chasing her. Not worth it." Rae sighed, sitting on Iowa's legs.

"Can you get off?" Iowa asked.  
"Nope." Rae smirked, as Iowa attempted, pitifully, to shove her away. Attempting to stand, Iowa punched Rae in the back of the head. Hard. Rae fell off in slightly painful way, allowing the pyromaniac to stand once again. Iowa chuckled at the woman sprawled out on the floor before her, whom was flipping her off rather enthusiastically, and proceeded to insult her in many ways.

"Can you help me up? My leg's stuck?" Iowa heard Rae request, and she smirked.

"You say sorry for insulting me and sitting on my legs?"  
"You apologise for stealing my sword and getting me stuck here?" Rae smiled, as Iowa helped her up.

"Done." Iowa said, and hugged the two. Iowa and Rae frequently had minor fights such as that, but they quickly resolved, and usually had happy endings. Usually. The time Iowa blew up their dorm was a little different.

Rae pulled her sword out of the ground, and slid it into the sheathe on her back. Iowa rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

"Sorry about that." She genuinely looked sorry.

"Meh. It's not damaged. Everything's alright." Rae shrugged. Iowa looked at Rae, and smiled, seeing her grinning at her friend. Iowa was someone who only really felt guilt after she had actually done something and been told about it, instead of feeling it normally. Iowa was also weird.

"What's the plan?" Iowa asked.

"Dunno. Want me to get you a coffee?" Rae asked.  
"You're banned from the kettle, remember?" Iowa laughed.  
"I thought Michigan was the one banned…" Rae had clearly forgotten.  
"C'mon, I'll get you a can of Coke while we're there." Iowa patted her best friend on the shoulder. Rae shrugged, and followed the Pyromaniac to the kitchen.

The kitchen was a relatively small room that CO, one of the Freelancers, had Michigan help her set up out of sheer boredom, so she could cook. None of the group of Freelancers went to the Cafeteria anymore, and the Director doesn't exactly care. It had red and black tiles, a flat, white counter, a huge fridge-freezer, and a second fridge for drinks, mostly the group's alcohol and Rae's decaffeinated Cola. After an event a year ago, where Rae tried coffee for the first time, in both one of the funniest and most horrific nights of their time with the project, which had a consensus about not being talked about in any conversation, ever, she was banned from any caffeinated beverage. Rae didn't really care.

Iowa threw Rae a can as she entered, and Rae easily caught it.  
"One day, you'll fuck that up…" Iowa said mysteriously. Rae paled slightly. Slightly. Sitting on one of the stools there, she opened the can with a loud crack. Iowa busied herself with the kettle, as well as impressively climb to reach the best coffee: Oregon's personal stash. He still hasn't realized where the coffee has been disappearing to. Rae started playing with her cross around her neck, as Iowa fell, and slammed her head off the floor.  
"What the hell?!" Rae shouted worriedly.  
"I'm alright! Dignity isn't, but I am!" Iowa laughed.  
"You're nuts."  
"Yep." Iowa grinned.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two- Feeling a Little Green**

Rae helped Iowa back up, the latter immediately leaping back up onto the counter to get her coffee as soon as she was on her feet.  
"If you fall again, I'm leaving." Rae warned Iowa, who shrugged. Iowa then retrieved the kilogram bag of rich coffee, and hopped back down. Iowa smirked triumphantly.

"Ha." Iowa said pointedly at Rae, only to earn a spoon thrown at her head. Trying to catch it, she missed and had the cutlery hit her forehead with a cathartic dinking sound. "What was that for?" Iowa questioned.  
"You know what it was for." Iowa raised an eyebrow at Rae, who was leaving the room.

Rae decided to go and see Michigan, and already knew where the man would be. The engineering deck. The man always spent his time tinkering with things there; mostly out of boredom. Once she reached the deck, unfortunately located near the back end of the Mother of Invention, the ship where Project Freelancer is located, everyone either being agents or workers for the Director of the Project. Rae had spent many a night trying to figure out what the Project was for, but come up with nothing that made any real sense.

Michigan was in fact in the engineering deck, to Rae's expectation. He was hitting a new metal frame with a modified hammer, with a diamond head to allow him to bend almost every metal, as well as it being attached to a special setup in the ceiling, nearly quadrupling his hitting power.

"What're you working on?" Rae leant against the wall. Michigan looked up and grinned.  
"New gun. Basically a shoulder mounted flamethrower." Michigan told her. Michigan had a strange appearance. His jet black hair and blue eyes may not have been strange, but everything else was. He had a tattoo running across most of his torso of a clockwork mechanism, with tattooed torn skin on it, as well as wearing a black shirt, a green jacket, and darker green jeans. His skin was also a uniform shade of green due to an accident with a mutagen several years back. Michigan just found it lucky that his favorite color was green. He was also the second-youngest of the freelancers. Iowa, Rae, and Oregon were all 24, Ash, the group's pilot and CO's sister, was 27, Michigan was 20, and CO was 19.

"That's for Iowa, isn't it?" Rae smirked.  
"How many other insane pyromaniacs do we know?" Michigan chuckled.

"That's not very nice!" A short, young woman came in. CO. She had dark brown hair, lighter, but still rather dark brown eyes, an anime t-shirt for a show Rae never recognized, a pair of jeans, and was distinctly Korean.  
"Hi, CO." Rae and Michigan both waved to the newcomer.

"Hi!" She waved happily.

"Why are you here?" Michigan asked CO.

"I just finished my sparring match with Iowa. Had to bring my armor back to the armory. Thought I'd say hi." CO smiled.  
"I'll go with you if you want some company?" Rae offered, and CO grinned.

"Sure!" CO said happily.

CO was the team's insanity, and explosive firepower. Even being the shortest on the team by some level, and having quite possibly the lowest initial strength out of everyone in the group, she still carried around a dozen grenades, launchers, and bombs into battle on missions. Mostly due to Michigan's current best invention- adaptable nanomachines. Impossible to detect, unless Michigan himself uses a piece of technology to scan for them. They boost abilities of a person past their physical norm, even if it is incredibly expensive to make them. CO's amplify the strength of her muscles, allowing her to carry weights normally at least four times what she could without them. Rae had them to boost her speed and dodging abilities, allowing her to dodge around attacks with even greater ease, and, when she pushes herself, she could run at speeds nearing 25 miles per hour. Iowa's boosted her overall physical abilities, Oregon's boosts his strength also, and Michigan doesn't have any, due to the lack of equipment to make enough for him.

The armory was a dimly lit, but absolutely gigantic room. Sets of armor lined the walls, and each had a plaque underneath it to say who owned the suit. Other than that, it was a fairly standard room, with most of the holes for sets empty due to a lack of agents. Rae glanced at hers, near the center of the room, where her armor rested. It was dark grey, with red accents. Iowa had the same style, just with orange instead. It read her agent name, Nevada, beneath it. Rae's helmet was modified with a significantly smaller visor to stop shattering, due to how often the normal helmet's visor broke while Rae was using it, and there was more defense near the bottom to protect Rae's neck. CO's was significantly bulkier than the others, allowing for her to resist the explosions she uses so frequently, like Rae's and Iowa's, except they are grounded and fireproof, respectively. CO placed her armor down, and the technology in it assembled the compact suit to make it look like she was wearing it, just that she wasn't. CO looked to Rae.

"Wanna go get drunk?" She offered, always being blunt with what she said.  
"You go, I'll get Iowa." Rae nodded, and the two left the large room together to find the others.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three- Debriefing**

Rae stood up, observing the carnage around her. She had wisely backed out of the group when they all got a little too drunk, not having drank anything thanks to her Straight Edge lifestyle. CO was just waking, not realizing that she was half-naked and surrounded by random objects.

"The hell happened last night?" Rae asked. Carnage on this scale was extremely rare, not since the coffee incident had something like this happened.

"No clue. Michigan backed out after about ten minutes after you, aside that, no clue." CO answered, standing up in the rubble that surrounded her. Iowa was in a corner of the room, completely surrounded by scorch marks, predictably, and Oregon was hanging off the ladder someone had clumsily set up, asleep.

"How'd Iowa start another fire?" Rae asked.

"Stole my lighter and had some whiskey near her. Instant fireball." CO murmured, pointing to the largest burn, surrounded by charred glass. Rae sighed, rubbing her eyes, and threw the nearest object, a random piece of metal, at Iowa, waking her up instantly.

"Who's attacking us?" She asked groggily.  
"Wake up." Rae kicked her friend. Iowa jerked, and stared at Rae in mild anger.

"What?" She asked, now fully awake.

"The Director wants us. Get him down and get your armor on." Rae instructed. Both Iowa and CO groaned. The Director only wanted to see the entire group when missions were involved.

Around ten minutes later, the group arrived at the bridge of the Mother of Invention, with only Michigan not there due to the fact that he does not fight on the front of battle, but rather supplying the means to fight, the technology and such.

"Agents, I have discovered an important piece of technology in an Insurrection base, which can create Artificial Intelligences. You will clear the base out, retrieve the technology, and bring it to Agent Michigan."

"Sir?"  
"Yes, Agent Nevada?" He addressed Rae.

"Why is this so important?" The Director chuckled quietly.

"If the enemy created an A.I., then we would be outmatched in almost every way against the Insurrection, as the AI would simply predict our next action. Take it, and we gain that advantage." The Director explained. "Any more questions?" Silence. "Then go."

Michigan caught up with Rae in the corridor as she walked towards the armory. He was practically bouncing with excitement.  
"I want to ask you a favor." Michigan said.

"Shoot." Rae smiled.

"I need someone to take the AI so it won't be damaged or stolen." Michigan began, but Rae cut him off.  
"Sorry, why is this a bad thing?" She inquired.

"It would require a major surgery to get the AI fitted into your head so it wouldn't be damaged and could work right with you."  
"What kind of surgery?"  
"Basically, we'd remove a chunk of skin and skull, and then place the AI unit in its place. It'd then be fused to the skin as if it was natural, and then it's done." Michigan explained.

"Why me?" Rae asked.

"I trust you the most with that AI."  
"What, more than the psychotic, pyromaniac lesbian, the insane Korean, and the guy who lives to fight and get drunk?" Rae smirked knowingly.

"CO isn't insane." Michigan defended his friend.  
"Anyone who has to sleep with a giant plushy yellow mouse is at least odd." Rae pointed out. Michigan opened his mouth to defend his friend, but couldn't find a good excuse, evidently. "See?" She asked him, and he nodded sadly. "I'll still do it, though. I still owe you for the sword." Michigan chuckled.

"That was fun making." Michigan said, clearly reminiscing. Rae swung it off her back, where it rested, next to her DMR (Mid-range marksman and hunting rifle) and Sniper Rifle. It's blade was tri-angular, with a latch about 5 inches down that could snap down to reveal a barrel, to fire a stunning bolt when the generator in the hilt is active. It's 3 foot blade length was perfect for Rae, being 5' 10" and having it be just longer than her back meant it was easy to grab.

The group as a whole reached the Hangar, where CO immediately sprinted and leapt towards the pilot for the group. Said pilot, Ash, was CO's older sister, by 4 years.

"Hey, sis." She clumsily patted her sister on the head, and motioned for the others to get on her heavily modified ship, The Blade. Rae was the first on, Iowa and Oregon both climbing on at the same time, and CO and Ash were on last as the older had to pry her sister off of her in order to begin flying. The ship slowly flew out of the hangar, towards the planet below, and to the location of the next mission.

While this was happening, a man watched on via hacked security cameras. Chuckling quietly to himself, he picked up his Comm unit, and contacted the other fool.

"They're coming to you. Be prepared." He warned him.  
"Okay." Was the only response he got. The man leaned back in his chair, and awaited the inevitable bloodbath.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four- The Bloodbath**

A voice, muffled, came from the area around her. She raised a hand to the side of her head, and it came away crimson, soaked in blood. She attempted to stand, but found something blocking her right leg. Or was it left?  
"Rae!" The voice shouted, and she felt herself raised onto her feet, and rested on a large, flat surface. Probably a rock.  
"What- what happened?" Rae asked, as a cold foam was sprayed onto the bleeding side of her head. The woman, now Rae could recognize her as CO. Rae glanced around, slowly, as memories came back. She could see Iowa and Ash both resting on each other's shoulders, and Oregon pacing, his arm in a makeshift brace.

"Enemy knew we were coming, blew the wing off The Blade with a cannon of some sort. They think we're dead, though. Iowa's got a broken leg and arm, Ash nearly died, we've had to improvise and cut off her arm," Rae noticed that, under closer look, Iowa had been concealing Ash's missing arm with her own, "Oregon's elbow was dislocated, I took a lump of shrapnel in my eye," CO did indeed look like it, with tear-track like stains of blood leading from her left eye, " and by the looks of it, your ear was mostly ripped off and your prosthetic arm is broken."

Rae stood up, and looked at her arm, and the few pieces of metal that remained from her costly prosthetic. She twisted it completely around, and pulled the thing off. Throwing the scrap pieces away, she then grabbed her sword, thankfully not damaged, and twirled it in her hand. CO grabbed her arm, and glared at her.  
"No."  
"There's still a mission to complete, and I'm the most able bodied." Rae reasoned. The loading of a shotgun caught Rae's attention.  
"I'll come." Oregon told her. CO lifted her grenade launcher.  
"I will too." She said. Rae nodded, and slipped around the entranceway to the complex rather easily, as her two teammates started raising hell. She knew where the objective was, and slipped through the combat to reach the large building in the centre of the complex.

There, a large piece of technology rested on a metal table. As she went to grab it, she felt a pistol rest against the back of her neck.

"No." The unlucky soldier said mockingly. Smirking, Rae spun around swinging her sword at waist length as she did so, slicing the man clean in half.

"Yes." She smiled.  
"Boo!" Oregon voiced his disapproval of her joke, as she picked up the device.

"C'mon." She got a headstart by about 5 feet on Oregon, when she heard the familiar sound of a sniper firing. "Sniper!" She switched her sword to its ranged mode, but couldn't see anyone.

"Thanks for… checking on me." Oregon coughed out. Rae spun around, and saw Oregon collapsed, clutching his side, which was bleeding profusely.

"Oregon!" Rae ran over to her friend, who was pulling something off of his neck. He forced the short chain into Rae's hand, and smiled.  
"Do me a favor?" Oregon said weakly as he sat back.

"Anything." Rae panicked.  
"Make sure to get the guy that got me. Fucker'll have to watch his back." He coughed out, nearly managing a chuckle, using the last of his energy to lie back, and close his eyes. CO ran up.  
"What the hell just happened?" She demanded of Rae. Rae opened her fist to look at the dogtags-"Daniel Black- Agent Oregon" was inscribed on them.  
"We're going to get Michigan, and start a new mission when we've got the AI." Rae said, coldly.

"What?" CO asked.

"We're avenging Oregon."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5– A Little Angel**

It was a week after Oregon's death. Michigan took the news hard, being Oregon's best friend, but still worked on the AI.  
"Rae?" Michigan approached her. She had been spinning a dagger on her thumb for the last half of an hour.

"Yeah?" She didn't look up at the man.  
"The AI's ready." Rae nodded, throwing the dagger into a dartboard, getting a bullseye. She went to the surgical center, as Michigan explained what they were going to do again. Rae sighed, and entered the room. She was going to have the rest of her ear removed, replaced with a prosthetic microphone, in the shape of an ear, and have her arm replace while it was all happening as well. She laid down on the bed as the surgeons advised, and the last thing she remembered was a mask being placed over her mouth and nose before everything went dark.

Rae sat up, slowly, rubbing her arm, and her prosthetic. Michigan sat next to her, and immediately sprung to action, helping her sit up properly.

"Easy…" Michigan said. Rae opened her eyes and looked at her new hand. It was bronze-colored, with a strange hollow metal trapezoid that began at the top of the prosthetic, and ended at her wrist, getting taller as it went along her arm. The bronze-colored metal ran in cylinder form up her arm to her wrist, with a black plastic covering the tech inside. Rae pointed to the trapezoid.  
"What's this?" She asked. Michigan gently pressed a button, installed on the underside of her arm, while the trapezoid was on the top. A 2 foot long, thin blade shot out, looking rather like a needle.  
"A new sword. Basically, it allows you to absorb the electrical energy from things, as well as charge when you sleep, to shoot lightning from your hand. It has around 20 shots before it needs to recharge. It works via your brain pattern, so just think that it needs to fire and it'll fire."  
"What about the AI?" Rae said. Michigan looked at her, clearly amused.  
"I had to shave half of your head to install it, but it works. Feel your head." Michigan smiled. Rae indeed ran a hand down the left side of her head, which was indeed now clean-shaven, and found a strange metal device in her head. "That's the AI. I turned it on around half an hour ago, but she's waiting for you to talk to her before she talks to anyone else. She's shy." He smiled even more as Rae raised an eyebrow at him.

"What's her name?" She inquired.  
"Angel." Michigan said, before CO poked her head in.  
"Mitch!" Most shortened Michigan's name to that.  
"Yeah?"  
"Ash's just got her hand stuck under a crate. I can't get it out. We need a hand." CO said. Michigan sighed.  
"I'm coming."

"Angel?" Rae said expectantly, and for around ten seconds, nothing happened, before a holographic image flickered into life in front of her. She had black hair, also half-shaven, with pale skin, wearing a black single-piece outfit that looked rather futuristic, with white wings spreading out from each shoulder.

"Hello." She said, looking up at Rae.

"What'd you do?" Rae inquired.

"I can run technology you can't, I can hack basically anything, and give tactical information." Angel answered.

"That sounds awesome." Rae smiled. Angel smiled too.

"Rae?" Iowa came in. Rae noticed Angel jump and vanish as she spotted Iowa. She was in her full armor, now with her flamethrower attached.

"Who were you talking to?"  
"My new AI." Rae answered shortly.  
"Where is he?" Iowa questioned.  
"Angel?" Rae said, and the AI did appear, just avoiding looking at Iowa.

"That's frigging awesome." Iowa said, clearly in awe at the technology.  
"Who's sh-she?" Angel looked scared of Iowa.

"Agent Iowa." Iowa proclaimed with an over the top bow to the AI.

"A friend." Rae said simply. Angel seemed to relax a little.

"Okay." Angel said, still looking at Iowa with a slight amount of fear.

"Listen, I know I only came a second ago, but I actually have to be somewhere. I only heard you talking and got curious. See ya." Iowa waved, and walked out.

"Hey, why're you scared of Iowa." Rae asked.

"I don't like new people. They could attack me." Angel said.  
"But you're holographic." Rae reasoned.

"Yes, but a well-placed shot to my drive, or an EMP would still kill me instantly." Angel told Rae, who raised an eyebrow at the information.

"So why'd you trust Michigan and I?"  
"Michigan made me, and implanted me into you. I trust the guy who made me, and the person he gave me to." Angel reasoned.

"Okay. Ready to go and kill some bad guys?" Rae asked, sitting up.  
"Of course." Angel smirked.

"I think we'll both be great friends…" Rae said, leaving the hospital wing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six- Payback Begins…**

The entire squad of Freelancers had gotten their equipment fairly easily, and managed to get out without notice thanks to Ash's skill and speed at getting the Pelican (A ship designed for carrying soldiers and vehicles) out of the ship quickly.

Inside, Rae was wearing what was left of her armor- her helmet, right arm, part of her chest, and left leg's armor. The rest was too damaged to use. She fiddled with her prosthetic, and occasionally glanced up. Iowa was pacing up and down the small ship, CO was sleeping, moving slightly every five minutes or so, and Michigan was fiddling with a small piece of technology, with only a screwdriver and a knife. It only took ten minutes of this to make Rae doze off and fall asleep.

She awoke with a start, as the ship landed. Yawning, she stood up and glanced outside. Iowa held a large Gravity hammer, waiting for the door to open, Michigan was standing, but near the exit, where a turret was situated, even though Rae knew he would sooner use the thing than blow himself up (actually, not blow himself up, Rae thought, realizing the bad wording of her own thoughts), and CO held her Grenade Launcher readily with one hand. Rae picked up her rifle in her right hand, and lifted it with some ease- it was made lighter and smaller so one hand could use it without much difficulty. Angel materialized before her.

"Can I ask something?" She looked up at the Freelancer.

"Yeah?" Rae nodded.

"Why are you all named after US states?" Rae actually paused for a second.  
"No clue."  
"OI!" CO's yell emanated from the outside of the ship. Everybody else had left and were waiting for her. CO had clearly gotten impatient and bored.

Climbing off of the ship, Rae walked over to the rest of the team. Michigan was there to get them into the enemy's communications after taking the base, and all of the others were clearly desperate to fight. Maybe that was why Ash had landed them at a huge base. CO had her Grenade Launcher resting on her shoulder, and it was clearly loaded with something powerful, if the flashing red light on the side of the gun, which was more of a grenade crossbow, was anything to judge by. Iowa leaned against her hammer, which she had stolen from the corpse of a Jiralhanae Chieftain during the great war, when Rae, Iowa, and Oregon, along with another close friend who didn't join the project, Johnathan, were Orbital Shock Drop Troopers (ODSTs) who were shot in from orbit to stop particularly troublesome enemy raids and help in losing battles. Heavily trained suicide soldiers, basically. Rae lifted her rifle into her hands and looked at her two soldiers and grinned.

"Normally, I'd give a complicated battle plan. This time? Just raise all kinds of hell." Rae told them, and Iowa sprouted a maniacal grin.

"Then let's go." Iowa smirked, and, using her hammer, flung herself over the wall of the compound. CO and Rae both simply climbed over to see Iowa beating everything that moves into a fine paste.

"Go!" Iowa waved them on, destroying one soldier's entire head with a single swing of the hammer.

CO nodded to Rae, and ran off to the right, at a fork in the buildings, a small mushroom cloud emanating from the direction she ran telling Rae that she had at least found someone. Smirking, Rae quickly fired three shots, killing the soldiers that were coming out of a nearby building instantly, before kicking a fourth in the crotch, and firing a shot between his eyes. Working her way through the base, Rae froze near the end. A man was standing, leaning against a wall. He wore jet-black armor, and carried a sniper rifle. Oregon's killer.

"You killed my friend." The man shrugged.

"So what if I did?" His voice was heavily distorted by something.

"Why?"  
"Was told to by my boss." He shook his head; he clearly didn't like this fact.

"That's all I get? After you killed my fucking friend?!" Rae was less shocked now, more furious. The man nodded. Rae swung the rifle up, and fired. The man dropped to the floor, dead. Pulling his helmet off though, to see Oregon's killer, she released a long stream of swears. It was a robot.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven- Against Protocol**

Michigan leapt over the wall to meet Rae when she called him. He immediately studied the robot, and muttered many swear words, almost as many as Rae.  
"What is it?"  
"This isn't one of the times when a robot is killing due to a glitch, or electrical interference." Michigan stated.

"Then what is it?" Rae inquired.  
"It was programmed, by the looks of it, to kill you, and then leave, but it missed, and couldn't get a shot off again, before you tried to kill it." Michigan stated.

"Why was it just programmed to stand there?" Angel asked, appearing before the two of them.  
"It must have served its purpose, and, by giving it to us, it would have wiped away trails of who programmed it. I can only get one name, but it makes no sense. It's a nickname or alias of some kind." Michigan ran a hand through his hair.  
"Who did it?" Angel inquired further.  
"You ever heard of a guy called Tracer?" That caught Rae's attention.  
"Yes." Rae said, feeling a combination of anger, frustration, and betrayal. Tracer had been Johnathan's nickname while they were in the ODSTs, due to how efficient of a killer and sniper he was. He had tried to get them killed. Rae looked back at Michigan.  
"Anything else of use in there?" She said, failing to keep her anger with Tracer out of her voice.

"It was sent to them by something called Vanguard. That's about it." Michigan shrugged, and poked the robot's head. "Nothing more useful in this thing. Sorry."

Rae met up with Iowa and quickly explained what happened with the android. This lead to Iowa nursing a bloody hand after punching the nearest wall. Iowa looked over to Rae, inspiration in her voice.  
"What?" Rae looked at her best friend.

"Call Hack! He'd find Tracer in an hour!" She said, clearly excited with her idea. Rae slammed her palm against her head.

"Dammit! Should've thought of that sooner!" Rae sighed, as Angel appeared before Rae.  
"Hack?" She asked, clearly worried by the idea of Rae being close friends with a hacker.

"Very old friend. Hack'll get us back on the right track."

On the ship, Rae borrowed Michigan's holographic communicator and threw it onto the floor of the ship, which was resting around 30 miles away from the insurrectionist base. The communicator had been pre-set with Hack's address. Within moments, they had a response. Hack, it turned out, was a 16 year old girl, with blonde hair, a plaster on her right cheek, a bright blue robotic eye, which contrasted with her other eye, a dark brown one, and wore a dark blue shirt.

"Hi!" Hack waved to Rae. Rae nodded, and Iowa waved back. Ash, CO, and Michigan were all surprised by Hack's appearance.

"This is Hack? I was expecting a 30 year old guy, to be honest." CO said bluntly.

"Yeah, throws almost everyone off." Iowa nodded.

"What do you want?" Hack went from cheery, at seeing Rae and Iowa again, straight to a businesslike tone.

"Tracer." Rae told her.  
"What about him?" Hack raised an eyebrow.

"Find him." Rae told her.  
"Why?"  
"He killed Black." Rae looked away from Hack as she told her this detail. Iowa noticed Hack become much more distressed, even though an untrained eye wouldn't recognize it.  
"Done." She said, and the feed disconnected.

"When'd you meet her?" Michigan asked Iowa and Rae, while they waited for Hack to locate Tracer.  
"About 4 years ago, we met her when her city was being destroyed by the Covenant. Turned out that she had a talent for getting into any encrypted data, and Oregon and I trained her for a bit. She's basically out secret weapon." Rae answered.

"Anything she hasn't hacked into?" CO asked.  
"Not that I know of." Rae grinned.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight- No Other Options**

The group had waited for one day, awaiting Hack's response. Rae had been avoiding everybody, as had Iowa. CO had largely rested, and relaxed. Ash had mostly worked on the ship, improving its flight speed, Michigan had just tinkered with random pieces of technology.

"Rae?" Said Freelancer was leaning against a rock. Rae glanced up to see Michigan.

"What is it?" Rae asked him.

"What's up?" He asked her.

"It's just hard to think that Tracer would try to kill us." Rae ran a hand through her hair. Michigan nodded. Michigan was Tracer's younger brother, and, as Rae reflected on it, he must've been taking the betrayal just as hard. Rae should have noticed it prior; Michigan was Scottish, but trained himself to speak in a British accent, and only reverted back in any way to his native one when very emotional. Inklings of the accent were coming through for the time since he figured it out. Even though Rae had to explain that Tracer was his brother's nickname.

"Still, we have an advantage." Michigan looked at Rae.

"What?"

"Angel. I've been working on a shield to go in your arm. It'll let you make a bubble shield in a pinch. I needed an AI to run it, though."

"Really?" Angel appeared. Michigan threw it to Rae.

"Yeah." He smiled. As Rae installed it into her prosthesis, Michigan rested his head back. He'd barely slept over the time that they had been on the mission. Just as he felt himself doze off, a loud ringing noise emanated from Rae's pocket.

"What the flying fu-" Michigan began, but Rae ran off, shutting the genius up.

Running quickly to the ship, Rae threw the holographic projector onto the floor. Hack reappeared, hair slightly shaggy, and with bags under her eyes. She had, like most of the Freelancers that were listening to her, clearly not slept during her search.

"Nothing." She said, sounding incredibly irritated.

"What?" Iowa sounded rather surprised.

"There was nothing there. I couldn't find a damn thing. Either he's got someone better than me on his side,"

"Not likely." Rae chipped in, sitting down in one of the ship's seats.

"Or he's left no trace at all." Iowa and Rae both smirked as she said that, knowing the man.

"No chance." Iowa told Hack.

"He was a great sniper and was," Rae put a lot of emphasis on the word 'was' "a good friend. But if he can hide his tracks even a quarter of as good as that, then I'll eat my hat." Hack smiled here.

"I thought that costed about $200?" She told Rae. Rae nodded. She, when she was 20, bought a cowboy hat that was incredibly expensive. She, even at that point, still occasionally wore it.

"I take that back." Rae told Hack, making her laugh, rather hard.

"Okay, I told you what I found out, now I'll take my bow." She gave an over-the-top bow, and the hologram turned off.

"What now?" Ash asked, having been leaning in the doorway, listening in.

"We should head back to the Mother of Invention." Michigan told them. CO chuckled.

"The Director might just explode when he finds out that we snuck out on a fake mission

to kill Oregon's murderer. Everyone thought about it, and Rae had to agree with CO,

before an over-the-top sigh from Iowa broke Rae out of her thoughts.

"What?" CO asked her.

"This is technically desertion." Iowa sighed.

"So?" Ash inquired. Michigan answered before Iowa or Rae could.

"Desertion is punished by a 5-year cryogenic suspension."

"Again, so?"

"All pay is removed during that time, so we won't earn any money." This made both CO

and Ash swear.

"We still should go back." Iowa told the group, and both Rae and Michigan agreed, Rae nodding and Michigan vocally saying it.

CO and Ash both made loud sounds of annoyance.  
"Why? We'll be frozen for half a decade?" CO asked.

"Better that than being killed for abandoning the Project. Trust me, this is the better option to take." Rae answered her.

Before they left for the Mother of Invention, Rae managed to find some short time to relax on her own, and talk to her AI.

"Angel?" Rae asked, and the AI whom she was addressing appeared before her. "Yeah? Need something?" Angel asked. Rae gave a shrug.

"Wanted to talk." Rae told the AI, whom then flew down, to appear to rest next to her, on a nearby rock.

"What about?" She inquired.

"You." Rae smiled, as she deflated slightly.

"Oh." That made Rae laugh.

"What do you like to do?" Rae asked.  
"Read?" Angel answered, not entirely sure if she should answer freely.  
"Angel. I don't mind if you don't want to tell me, I just want to know a bit about you. That's all." Angel visibly relaxed.  
"Okay. Yeah, I like to read." Angel told Rae.  
"What kind of stuff do you read?"  
"Science Fiction, Comedy, and Fantasy mostly." Angel answered. Rae smiled.  
"I read the same kind of stuff as you!" Rae said, mildly surprised.

"I know. I'm in your brain." Angel deadpanned, making Rae, and afterwards, Angel, both laugh.

Rae continued her conversation, learning that Angel also enjoyed comedy and action movies, and both share a love for watching fighting. The two were broken from their conversation as Iowa ran up to them.  
"Hey! We're leaving now." Iowa told the Freelancer and her AI, before immediately running off again.

"C'mon then, let's face the Director's wrath." Rae said to Angel, as she stood up, and headed for the ship.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine- Mysteries Unsolved**

Perhaps the Freelancers expected less of a punishment for deserting if they told the Director why they had left. Perhaps they just wanted him to know why they left. Or maybe it was just to shut him up. No-one would know which, aside from the Freelancers whom were just returning from their impromptu mission, with little end benefit to their leaving. At least, the Director thought that. The group of Freelancers had all been careful to omit that it was a member from Rae's old ODST squad whom had programmed that robot to kill Oregon. Mostly because that would mean referencing their lives from before Project Freelancer, something the Director forbade, and even Iowa could concede that angering the man more would be stupid. So, this left the Freelancers, upon returning, with 2 hours to pack away all of their things, hide them, and get ready for the Cryogenic suspension.

It was fortunate, then, that Rae didn't own all that much as far as possessions go. She had already hidden away everything of value, so it was more of a two-hour wait for a punishment. The Director wanted them to hide their personal items so no-one would ask about what the items were doing, and he would personally wipe their names from the Project's database, making them non-entities for the time while they were asleep.

Rae mostly just rested on her now-plain bed and reflected on what had happened. In half an hour, she found most of her questions raised towards Tracer.

 _Why would he betray us?_

 _Was he forced to?_

 _What could force him to betray us?  
Why kill Oregon, not any of the other, weaker Freelancers at the makeshift camp? _

_Was the robot aiming for me?  
Why leave the robot at the nearest camp to the Freelancers?  
Why put us on his trail?  
Why couldn't Hack find him?  
_All of these questions started to give Rae a headache. As she kneaded her temples with her knuckles, the door opened. Iowa, who had clearly just finished hiding her things, probably somewhere insane, collapsed onto her own bed.

"Tired?" Rae asked her best friend, whom nodded.

"At least after this we'll get the longest lie-in ever." Rae told her, making Iowa snort with laughter.

When the group arrived at the cryogenics bay, where there was a scientist setting everything up, shooting Michigan the odd dirty look.  
"What'd you do to annoy him?" CO asked.

"Might've 'accidentally'," The emphasis on that told everyone that it was clearly intentional, whatever he did, "Turned off all of the cryogenic stations just to annoy him." The scientist then threw a pen at Michigan, whom caught it with relative ease. The soft blue lighting of the room made his normally vibrant green skin look diseased, and pale. It wasn't a good look.

After another ten minutes of waiting for the scientist to finish setting up the cryogenic system, the group all climbed into the pods. Michigan shot the scientist a cocky smirk, as said scientist flipped the genius off as he climbed in. As Rae felt the entire pod freeze and the glass in front of her begin to frost over, she gave a slight wave to the outside, before everything went blank.


End file.
